13 Guilt

Marinette's POV

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"I still can't believe you found the dress without me! You could've called me girl!" Alya kept yelling at me as we walked into my room and flopped on the bed.

I felt bad going back to the mall without her, but I couldn't handle her throwing red, upon red, upon red dress at me the whole time again. But I found a really nice black deep-V cocktail dress that has blue sparkles on the bottom. It's not that I don't think I would've found the same dress with Alya there, I just think it would've taken much longer.

Sighing, I pulled out my phone to show her the dress but didn't realize she was already up and rummaging through my closet. "Hey, Alya! I have the picture right here of it on the rack, we don't need to pull it out!"

Ignoring me, she dramatically pulled it out, "Aha~! You thought you could hide this one from me girl, try it on!" She threw it across the room landing directly on my face. Rolling my eyes, I began to strip to put on the dress while Alya flipped through my sketchbook. "Oh~! What's this one? It looks like it's Ladybug inspired!" Before I could slip on the black dress, I ran across the room, hurdled my sofa and tackled Alya before she could skim through the pages any further.

"LET'S JUST FOCUS ON THE DRESS OKAY?!" Popping back on my feet with the book in my hand, I locked it again and threw it on my bed.

"Relax girl! I thought they looked really good, you should bring the idea up to Mr. Agreste. I bet he'd think they were good." She laughed and picked up the book again and put it back where she found it before.

Rolling my eyes, I ignored her and walked back over to where my dress laid on the floor. I stepped into it and slid it up in place, "come zip this up ya snoop!"

"Oh ha, ha! You're so funny Mari!" She skipped over in excitement and hastily zipped up the dress. "Alright, turn! I wanna see~!" She grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her. Before I could find my balance she screeched and jumped up and down with a grin. "Oh my gosh, Mari! I thought you were lying but daaaamn, this is hot!" In my embarrassment, I sat down and tried to pull the dress down to cover my knees.

"Alya...It's just a dress."

"It's not just a dress Mari, this is what's gonna change the new year for you! Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'new year, new you?' " I shrugged and she rolled her eyes, "well girl, this is the new you!"

I laid back on my bed with a sigh, "I'm the same me, I'm just wearing a very revealing dress!"

"Exactly! Right now, you're very closed in and not very outgoing."

I picked up a pillow and hit her in the face, "I'm outgoing! I even called Adrien and told him how madly in love with him I was!"

"Yeah but then you deleted it." She snickered as I groaned, facing the truth of my life as I know it.

Maybe I am a little introverted, but that's not always a bad thing.

"This coming year, you're going to blossom into this more revealing Marinette. I can see it in your eyes!" She got up and walked to my desk then walked back and dropped something next to me. Sitting up I see my sketchbook laying there, "you just have to be willing to take the first step."

I grabbed the book then dug through my pocket to pull out a key. Looking back at Alya, she shook her head in encouragement. Looking back at the book, my eyes focus on the lock making me drop the key. Abruptly standing up, I stride across the room to where my desk is, grab a mallet and smash the lock into bits and pieces.

"Marinette...?" I could hear Alya walking closer so I drop the mallet on the floor and turn around with determination.

"New year, new me right?" Looking out the window, I couldn't help but think of that night in the snow with Chat Noir.

Maybe I was too harsh on him, he was on the floor crying for forgiveness after all...

But he also admitted to everything. I can't just forgive him after all of that! He broke my heart twice and even told me about it to my face!

To be fair though, he didn't know he was telling me. He was just confiding in a friend...I even told Master Fu about finding out his identity! I'm such an awful person! How could I let something like this happen, I've let everyone down!

No Marinette, don't think that way! Even Master Fu said it was the right thing to do. He wasn't supposed to say anything that could give his identity away it's his own fault.

"Hello~ Marinette?" I snapped out of my thoughts when I saw a hand waving in front of my face.

Laughing I jumped on my bed with my book and motioned for her to join me. For the rest of the night, we talked about my designs and Alya confided in me about her and Nino's relationship status. Like no time passed at all, we looked out of the window and saw the sun start to rise.

"New day, new us! How's that one sound girl?"

"Yeah, that's more like it." We laughed and kept talking about other things we probably wouldn't remember the next night in our haziness.